


echoes of you

by blithe_bee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Christmas, Christmas Tree, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Hyuck is the best best friend, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Past Character Death, Sad, best friends nahyuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27992991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithe_bee/pseuds/blithe_bee
Summary: It's Jaemin's first Christmas without Jeno, but his memory lingers so, so achingly close. And that's just it — memories are all Jaemin has left of him.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	echoes of you

**Author's Note:**

> hello! ^-^ this was written for day 2 of 23 days of wonder on twitter. it's also a very clear case of me seeing a lovely prompt like 'angel' and wondering how I could make it sad, apparently. 
> 
> on that note, please check the tags before reading this!

It's the first Christmas Jaemin spends on his own.

Or, well, it was supposed to be, but he's lucky. Donghyuck, being the kind soul that he is, skipped on going back home for the holidays just to make sure Jaemin would have at least someone at his side during this time. Jaemin's half-hearted insistence for Donghyuck to let him go at it alone (because he'd be _fine_ ) and go visit his family only fell on deaf ears. Donghyuck would stay because it was what he wanted to do. And stay he does. 

It's nice, actually. Donghyuck has always been one of the funniest persons Jaemin knows, so it's easy to forget when he's around, going on about how Christmas is basically just a grand scheme of capitalism, yet not two minutes later asking Jaemin to go shopping with him for more tinsel and fairy lights and garlands to hang around the house, since 'You can never have enough!'. His energy is so invigorating, his presence so cheery and exuberant, that he's practically Christmas moulded into a person.

It's easy to forget because Donghyuck nestles up next to him every night, warm and soft and quiet, letting Jaemin nuzzle his head in his chest, since recently that's the only way he's been able to fall asleep without first breaking into a fit of sobs. He pats his head without a word, either until he's the first overtaken by sleep and his hand falls limp at the back of Jaemin's neck, or the other way around, Jaemin dozing off along with the gentle, regular touch. 

It's also easy to forget because, funnily enough, Donghyuck doesn't try to make him forget, or ignore the reality of it, or leave it in the past. He doesn't ask Jaemin to smile any more than he can, doesn't get upset if he becomes so absent and distracted he doesn't pay attention to one of his jokes, and if Jaemin feels he needs to give himself the chance to simply be on his own for a moment, Donghyuck lets him. He doesn't try to console him, because he can't, but he's there, he's always there. 

Donghyuck says nothing even as his Christmas holiday isn't the merry one he's used to. He waits for and with Jaemin. Not for one second does Jaemin think Donghyuck isn't content doing just that, and for that he'll be forever grateful. Because Donghyuck isn't just one of the funniest persons Jaemin knows, but also one of the kindest, and putting up with a gloomy Christmas like it's absolutely normal is only one of many things he'd do just to be there for Jaemin. To make sure he's okay.

Jaemin hopes he'll be able to make it up to him, one day. 

"And… done!" Donghyuck says, taking a step back to look at the lavishly decorated Christmas tree with pride in his eyes. It's a small and stuffy one, the only one he could convince Jaemin to buy, but the skillfully hung ornaments have a miraculous effect on it. "I think I've never decorated a Christmas tree more prettily than this. You should be praising me, really." He grins and claps for himself. "C'mon, now you place the star at the top, Nana."

Jaemin hums. He's been idly twirling the little star in his hand for the past few minutes, his mind elsewhere, after letting Donghyuck handle the decorating on his own. Not a bad idea, all in all. Donghyuck is far better at it than him anyway. He also takes great joy in it, and Jaemin wants to make sure he offers him every chance he can to be joyous. It's the least he can do.

"Nana? Are you alright?" Donghyuck says, once the silence drags on for too long.

"Yeah," Jaemin says, or tries to say, as the word comes out muffled. It sounds like a lie. He supposes it is. 

Donghyuck rests a hand on Jaemin's shoulder gently, slowly, almost feather-like, as though he's afraid to disturb him. As though he's as fragile as the glass decoration he's holding. Jaemin forces a smile and gives his friend's hand a pat, using all the strength he has left, although it feels like his hand moves forward on pure inertia rather than his own will. 

"Is this about…?" _Him_ , he doesn't say, but Jaemin knows. He sounds so tender, so cautious that Jaemin has no choice but to yet again succumb to the avalanche of emotions he's been trying to hold back for the past couple of minutes. 

It is about him. About the boy with a smile brighter than the stars, who somehow smelt of cinnamon even months after Christmas passed and whose eyes became crescent moons of joy every time Jaemin told him he loved him. The only person he could turn to when nightmares plagued his nights, knowing his presence would turn them into pleasant dreams instead, or when his days turned monotonous and dark, when Jeno would inadvertently add warmth to their harshness. The boy he practically grew up with, who was at first, as children, his Captain Hook to his Peter Pan, then a loyal friend, a fierce ally, only to then turn into his first, unrequited love, and at last become his other, better half. 

The boy he loved, loves. And the boy he's lost.

"I did this every year with him," he says, choking back on a sob. "This was his favourite part of Christmas. Decorating the tree. He'd always buy new decorations in advance, to make sure it was perfect. And I never got it, you know? This is the one thing I didn't get. His cats would always… they'd always ruin it in a day or two. Sometimes that same night."

His cats - Jaemin's, now. The only part of Jeno he still has. As if understanding, one of them meows sadly from the sofa.

"They climbed up on it and it always, always fell, and the decorations would shatter, and this one time the power even went off because they'd messed with the fairy lights or something, and god, it was always chaos." He draws in a breath to steady himself, but it doesn't work, because his tears only run faster down his cheek, hotter. "We'd have to clean up and it took hours and sometimes we got hurt from the shards and I just- I complained about it to him so many times. Every year. The silly part is that it never phased him. It was almost like he enjoyed the destruction. Like it was part of the experience. He'd always just laugh and I'd let it go soon enough, but…"

He bites the inside of his cheek, letting Donghyuck gather him in his warm, caring arms, and the sadness he sees on his face before he does washes over him.

"Now I wish I could have one more chance to decorate it with him. Even clean up the mess afterwards." 

'Without complaining this time' he means to add, but ends it here. There's so much more he could say about his hopes and wishes, but little that would actually change anything. Hope won't bring Jeno back. 

It's been a cold two months without Jeno. Empty. At times he's unsure how he's managed to stay afloat, but he attributes it to the fact that, in a ridiculous way, he hasn't been suffering. Not in the way you'd expect, the kind of outward suffering you see most often. It's not an active type of suffering. Most of the time he doesn't realise he is, because he has to keep up with everything life and work demand of him, and the feelings are pushed back, drowned in the soundless echo of his heartbeat. He's just been so terribly, terribly empty. Life has been blank, vague, blurred lines of more of the same. All has been a matter of continuing, moving forward without plans or meaning, because that's all he's been able to do.

If Donghyuck hadn't remained by his side, unrelenting no matter how much Jaemin tried to push him away, life really would have lost all colour. But Donghyuck hasn't given up on him. He understands, and he waits, and he hugs Jaemin like this, letting him suffer in the way he really needs to, without holding back or being ashamed of anything.

He listens as the words cascade from Jaemin's mouth, just begging to be released. Memories he's kept trapped in himself, regrets he's never voiced, sadness and anger and frustration and loss he's never allowed himself to feel. It's an outburst he can't motivate, without a clear catalyst, but he can't stop it. He tells Donghyuck a lot of things, many of which he hardly remembers afterwards, but the tightness in his chest mellows a bit as he does.

When he can't say anything more, Donghyuck sighs, murmurs "I understand," and tightens his grip around him.

He assures Jaemin how much Jeno loved him, how he can't have minded his small tantrums in the least, how he knows he's watching him from above, waiting to see him struggle with the imminent mayhem on his own. Not words he's never heard before, maybe even a bit cliché, but with each one, with every circle Donghyuck massages onto his upper back, and with every sob that escapes Jaemin in the meantime, he slowly manages to calm down. 

When at last his breath finally becomes even again, Donghyuck lets go. He watches him for a moment to gauge what he should do next, then he attempts a small, sad smile, and says, "I'll put the star up for you instead, if you want."

Jaemin shakes his head, wiping the last few teardrops off his cheeks. He straightens his back, inhales deeply, then exhales, counting to ten as he does so. He braces himself inwardly, tells himself he's okay, because he wants to be. At least now, while they work on the Christmas tree. For Jeno.

"No, I'll do it." He has to. "But not the star. There's… there's something else I want to use."

Donghyuck nods, though he looks at him uncertainly as Jaemin passes the star back to him and walks to the coffee table, where his bag is, rummaging through it in silence. Jaemin sees the gentle understanding in Donghyuck's eyes when he returns grasping a small, pearly white ornament.

"An angel," Donghyuck breathes, and it almost sounds like he, too, is on the verge of tears. "Yes. How fitting." 

It's moments like this when Jaemin remembers that Jeno was also Donghyuck's friend, and that though Donghyuck wasn't as close with him as he is with Jaemin, he still struggled with his loss - still is, in his own way. When he's drowning in the grey, murky waters of his own grief, Jaemin sometimes forgets he's not the only one who misses him. That he's not alone in this. That he never is, as Donghyuck continues to remind him.

Carefully, he places the angel at the top of the tree, and once he steps back, it's Donghyuck who comes up to him, in need of a hug. 

As he embraces him, Jaemin looks at the angel (a crochet one, intricate, holding a snowflake in its hand), and small embers of warmth flicker inside him as he realises it truly does remind him of Jeno, up there more than when he bought it. If there's one thing Jaemin loved in Jeno more than anything else, it's how tenderhearted he was, and the delicacy of the angel seems to portray just that. 

A flash of Jeno's eye smile passes before his eyes, a remembrance of his touch, and a quiet whisper deep down tells him he's actually okay. That he will be, in time. At his own pace. 

"I really miss him," he admits, quietly. It's his first time saying it out loud, and it's painful, but it feels good to say it, somehow. "I'll miss him for a long time." 

"Of course you will, Nana. No one expects you not to. But he's-"

"Still with me. I know," he finishes for him. That's the one thing Donghyuck never fails to say to him, every time he thinks he needs to. Sometimes Jaemin actually allows himself to believe it. This time, for one fleeting moment, he not only believes it, but feels it as well. The angel that will always be with him. "With the both of us."

They huddle up beside the tree, and, surprisingly, for the first time in so terribly long, when Jaemin smiles up at the tree, it reaches his eyes. A hazy pain keeps its hold on his chest, but there's something new about it. It's not the empty hole of before; rather, he realises it's acceptance. Acceptance that he's lost one of the most important persons in his life, and that there's nothing that will change that. That he'll continue to miss him, never forget him, and that's just how it is. 

In spite of how cruel that realisation is, it's no longer constraining. He's always needed to let himself acknowledge this, and through this much needed outburst, he's finally been able to make a step in that direction.

So instead of the sad memories of before, he turns his mind to something else.

"Do you... Do you want me to tell you this one funny story about how he lost one of the cats right on Christmas Eve?" he asks, and though his voice wavers so very slightly, his smile doesn't, because he tells himself Jeno wouldn't like it to.

"Oh, no. Really? Jeno? Lee Jeno? Are we talking about the same person?" Donghyuck says, taking on a playful attitude, though clearly exaggerated, meant only to steady Jaemin.

As he tells the story, accompanied by Donghyuck's commentary and quiet laughter, his own happy memories of Jeno, it really does feel like someone's watching them. Whether the little angel at the top of the tree or a much more literal kind of angel, he isn't sure, but Jaemin lets himself bask in the feeling either way.

And days later, when none of the cats have pushed the Christmas tree down and don't seem to plan on doing it any time soon, Jaemin leans his head back and shakes it in amusement, looking upwards, with a small grin and a tear shimmering in the corner of his eye.

Jeno's last gift to him, perhaps. How very Jeno of him.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly I have a tendency to write (very) long fics so this was a little bit of practice with something shorter. I also loved this prompt so here we are! I hope you enjoyed it, please let me know what you thought if you'd like! wishing you all a lovely day <3
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/newnctheroes)


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